About Dating Advice Guy

My name is Brad. I live in Pittsburgh, PA with my wife who I met using online dating. I used online dating for a year and in the beginning had nothing but failures – my first date took months to get to and having one date a month was a good month.

However, later as I learned more about online dating, I had great success. I use this website to share my opinions on online dating and to try and help others achieve the success I was able to find.

My Experience Dating Online

I started dating online in June of 2004. I hadn’t dated actively for quite some time, going on only a handful of dates in the four previous years. I was very reluctant to using an online dating service and was only able to start once my loneliness outweighed my pride. I tried most of the big services: Match.com, eHarmony, Yahoo! Personals (today a part of Match), and a few smaller sites.

In the beginning, I made a lot of bad decisions and I think I unintentionally gave more than a few women the wrong impression about who I was. In my first six or seven months of online dating I only around five first dates. Thankfully, I did begin to understand how things worked, and my last five months of dating online transformed into the opposite of my initial experience: I went on dozens of dates and frequently had two or three first dates scheduled in the same week. I hated my first few months of online dating but loved my last few.

I met my wife just one day short of one full year of very active online dating. It felt like my 50th first date but it was her very first. I think we both knew within the first week that we had something special.

Time flies and now we’ve been married for years, have our first child, and are in love as ever. If you are currently dating online, I know it can be frustrating. Really, I do. Still, I hope you find encouragement in my story and in the advice, I provide here and that you’ll persist in your search for that special someone.

I am so grateful for the opportunity that online dating provided, an opportunity that has changed my life forever. I hope I can help you find the same success.

My Advice Is Dated

I dated online long before anything like Tinder or Bumble existed. Using your phone with online dating would have been unheard of. With that in mind, my advice is more useful for folks who are using the “older” online dating services like Match.com or eHarmony. I think some of the principles I speak about, such as getting ghosted, still apply regardless of the service. At the same time, I think it’s fair to admit that some content will not have aged as well as other content. Still, I hope it is helpful.

Who is this Guide for?

Given most of the information is based on information from 2004 to 2014, it’s pretty dated. As mentioned, nothing in the guide ever hits on newer service. I still think there’s a lot of value here, but if I had to guess, the guide is going to be most helpful for:

• People born before 1990 who have some experience dating online but want more information
• People born after 1990 but who may want to focus on some of the older dating services like Match.com or eHarmony
• People confused or frustrated by online dating and looking for any help they can find
• People who recognize that there will be a lot of details that are out-of-date, or will become out-of-date as time passes, but can value the core principles discussed here.
• People looking for a long-term relationship

When Taking My Advice…

I cover this in my Online Dating Guide but best reiterate it here: I offer advice based on my own experience and from conversations I have with others using the internet for dating. I do not believe there is a right and a wrong way of doing things in most cases. I do believe that approaching online dating in a particular way will improve your chances. However, I hope no one simply adopts all my opinions as their own. Read my thoughts with an open mind but then form your own opinion.

This site is also intended for those looking for a “serious” relationship. If you are just looking to sleep around, I imagine little here will be of interest to you because most of the suggestions involve devoting time to get to know someone.